Pinning arms to vest

Did not want to hi jack Wake crossing drill topic. Something we all have been told over and over, but is so missed used, I have heard this being told to people teaching a person when they are first learning to slalom. They are standing behind the boat not even making a cut through the wakes and they are yelling at the skier to pull their arms to their vest. Am I wrong that the only way your arms can end up on your vest is your lean away from the boat as you are cutting through the wakes or pulling out for the gates? Your arms should only get closer to your vest the more you lean away from the boat, forcing people to muscle their arms down to their vest only promotes bad form. Should we be saying make a harder cut through the wakes or lean away from the boat and your arms will naturally be pinned to your vest?

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Comments

In my eyes, arms to your vest is only possible if you are pulling with the proper form and intensity. If you aren't stacked you can't keep your handle close and if you are loading too hard you can't keep your handle close.

After a visit up north over the weekend I've been trying to "power tower" my way through the course which to me means to get locked in to a good pulling position, lock in my core, and just lean and resist against the boat. Good stack, limited load, and from that my arms and handle stay extremely close and connected to my body.

I tend to agree. Elbows to vest is open to very likely misinterpretation. Instead, I tend to tell people to ski with proud chest with "d!#& over your front foot." If you do that and can keep that position through your turns and crossings (I like the "power tower" reference), your elbows should naturally be where they need to be or close to it.

To be extremely clear, "power tower" to me does not in any way mean to pull hard. It means to use your height, core strength, and leverage to simply turn the ski and resist against the boat. Let the boat do the pulling, it has more horse power than you do and will win that game of tug-of-war 100% of the time.

Terminology and Mis-interpretation must be one of the biggest enemys of the water skier looking to improve, when you here things like pull harder it makes me shiver, rolling back to basics, arms are for attaching yourself to the handle/boat, your weight is used to apply load @RazorRoss3 has it right, with the method he describes above, you are going to maintain control, Power Tower is the way to go.

"If you are going to Go In, Go in Hard”

@TEL you are 100% right and this is just one of many examples of coaching that sounds right but is terrible in application.

There are times with intermediate skiers who are struggling with connection when the phrase pin your elbows to your vest does work but to me it is one of the last things I will tell a skier to think. Ideally your arms are straight and your body is lined up so your elbows are touching your vest.

Maybe off-topic but when working on keeping rope tension or handle control off the second wake feeling your elbows on your vest is one of many good approaches.

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@TEL, you just reminded me of when our nephew started skiing with us. He held his elbows to his vest, bent at the knees, butt sticking out. His form looked like T-Rex taking a dump! My back hurt just watching him! It took awhile to break the bad habits that were taught to him by his dad.